CROSSWORD SETTER: Ben Pall & David J. KahnTHEME: Body Enhancement … all the theme answers are common expressions with an “enhancement”, an extra letter that is circled in the grid. The circled letters, when read from top to bottom, spells out the word IMPLANTS, and if you connect the letters they define the profile of a breast. But, I'll leave the drawing of breasts to you ...

Today's Wiki-est, Amazonian GoogliesAcross19. Symphony whose second movement is marked "Marcia funebre. Adagio assai" : EROICA
Beethoven originally dedicated his "Eroica", Symphony No. 3, to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the principles of the French Revolution, and as such respected Bonaparte who was "born" out of the uprising. When Napoleon declared himself Emperor, however, Beethoven (and much of Europe) saw this as a betrayal to the ideals of the revolution, so he changed the name of his new symphony from "Bonaparte" to "Eroica", meaning "heroic" or "valiant".

20. Ring bearer : FRODO
Frodo Baggins is a principal character in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". Frodo is a hobbit, and was charged with the quest of destroying Sauron's Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

22. What a poltergeist investigator does? : COUNTS NO(I)SES
A poltergeist is a spirit or ghost that makes its presence known by making noises or by moving objects. The term poltergeist is German, coming from "poltern" meaning "to rumble" or "to make a noise", and "Geist", the German for "ghost" or "spirit".

24. 1862 invasion battle site : ANTIETAM
The first major battle to take place on northern soil during the Civil War was at Antietam Creek in Maryland. It was also the most bloody 1-day battle in American history, with about 23,000 casualties.

25. Mount for the god Neptune : SEAHORSE
Neptune was the Roman god of the water and the sea. He is often depicted astride a seahorse, and was worshipped by the Romans as the god of horses and was the patron of horse-racing.

27. TV show whose name precedes a colon : CSI
The TV show "CSI" gets a lot of criticism from law enforcement agencies for its unrealistic portrayal of the procedures and science of criminal investigation. I don't care though, as I just think it's fun television. The original "CSI" set in Las Vegas seems to have "gone off the boil", but the addition of Sela Ward to the cast of "CSI: NY" has really, really raised the level of the sister show set in New York City.

37. Noted explorer traveling with a monkey : DORA
“Dora the Explorer” is a cartoon series shown on Nickelodeon.

39. London's locale: Abbr. : ENG
London is the largest metropolitan area in the whole of the European Union (and one of my favorite cities in the world). London has been a major settlement for over 2,000 years and was founded as a town by the Romans who called it Londinium. The name "Londinium" may have existed prior to the arrival by the Romans, and no one seems too sure of its origins. Famously, the City of London is a one-square-mile area at the center of the metropolis, the area that marked the old medieval London. "The City", as it is commonly called, has its own Mayor of the City of London (the Mayor of London is someone else), and it's own City of London Police Force (the London Metropolitan Police are the police we usually see on the street as tourist, a different force).

40. Fruit for lagomorphs? : RABBIT (P)EARS
Lagomorphs are an order in the animal kingdom, the best-known family of which is Leporidae, the hares and rabbits.

49. Old French 28-Across : ECU
28. See 49-Across : COIN
The ecu was an Old French coin. When introduced in 1640 it was worth three livres (an older coin, called a "pound" in English). The word "ecu" comes from the Latin "scutum" meaning "shield". The original ecu used to have a coat of arms on it, a shield.

53. Mauna ___ : KEA
Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, the peak of which is the highest point in the whole state. Mauna Kea is in effect the tip of a gigantic volcano rising up from the seabed. So, the real height of the volcano is over 33,000 feet, quite a bit higher than Mount Everest (at 29,029 feet).

62. Opera : WORKS
The Latin for work is “opus”, with the plural being “opera”.

67. Wistful remark : SOME DAY
Wistful is a lovely word, I think, that can mean pensively sad, melancholy.

70. Result of a bad swing, maybe : DIVOT
A divot is a chunk of grass and earth that is removed by a golf club while striking the ball. “Divot” is derived from a Scottish word for a piece of turf or sod used as a roofing material.

73. ___ law (old Germanic legal code) : SALIC
The Salian Franks were a Germanic race responsible for the conquest of Gaul. The Salian Franks created a body of law now referred to as Salic law.

78. "Monk" org. : SFPD
"Monk" is a police drama set in San Francisco, starring Tony Shalhoub in the title role of Adrian Monk. Although the setting for the show is the San Francisco Bay Area, these days it is actually shot in Los Angeles.

83. Snick and ___ : SNEE
"Snick or snee" is the name given to cut and thrust while fighting with a knife. The phrase is rooted in a pair of Dutch words, and it gave its name to a "snee", a light sword-like knife.

84. Van Susteren of Fox News : GRETA
I remember watching Greta Van Susteren as a legal commentator on CNN during the celebrated O. J. Simpson murder trial. she parlayed those appearances into a permanent slot as co-host of CNN's "Burden of Proof", before moving onto her current gig as host of her won show on the Fox News Channel.

87. Mass of eggs : ROE
Roe is the name given to fish eggs or the ovaries of a fish laden with eggs. When the roe develop into fish, the fish may swim around in schools.

88. 10,000 61-Down : TESLA
61. See 88-Across : GAUSS
The Tesla unit measures the strength of a magnetic field, and is named after the Yugoslavian-American physicist Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla was born in Serbia, but later moved the US. His work on mechanical and electrical engineering was crucial to the development of alternating current technology, used by equipment that is at the backbone of modern power generation and distribution systems.

90. Sad sports headline in a Providence paper? : BROW(N) BEATEN
Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, is one of the eight Ivy League schools. Brown has been around a long time, founded in 1764, years before America declared independence from England. The university took the name of Brown in 1804 after one Nicholas Brown, Jr. gave a substantial gift to the school.

95. Verdi's "___ tu" : ERI
The aria "Eri tu" is from Verdi's opera "Un ballo in maschera" (A Masked Ball). It tells the story of the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden, during a masked ball.

96. Actress Gershon : GINA
Gina Gershon is an American actress. She has played a lesbian on screen a number of times and has become somewhat of a gay icon.

98. Sweetheart : BEAU
"Beau" is the French word for "beautiful", in the male sense.

101. Billy who sang "Rebel Yell" : IDOL
Billy Idol is an English rock musician, whose real name is William Broad. He started out with the punk band Generation X, and then made it big as a solo artist, helped along by some well received MTV music videos, in the early days of the genre.

110. Friend of Eeyore : ROO
Like most of the characters in A. A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh", Roo is based on a stuffed toy belonging to his son, Christopher Robin Milne.

111. Bronze, e.g. : ALLOY
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Compare this with brass, an alloy of copper and zinc. Copper and bronze are often mistaken for each other.

Down1. "___ Ramsey" (1970s western) : HEC
"Hec Ramsey" was a TV western starring Richard Boone that aired in the early seventies. The series was unusual in that it was set late in the days of the Old West, and the title character focused less on using a gun, and more on using forensic techniques to catch the bad guys.

2. Prize at the Barcelona Olympics : ORO
The 1992 Summer Olympic Games were held in Barcelona in Spain. They were the last games to be held in the same year as the Winter Games.

9. A famous one begins "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness" : ODE
"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness" is the first line of the famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats.

John Keats is famous for a writing a whole series of beautiful odes, in particular the so-called “1819 Odes”, a collection from the year 1819 that includes famous poems such as “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, "Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode to Psyche”.

10. Buns, e.g. : DOS
A bun is a type of hair-do.

11. One instrumental in music history? : AMATI
The first of the family to make violins was Andrea Amati, who lived in the 14th century. He was succeeded by his sons, Antonio and Girolama. In turn, they were succeeded by Girolama's son, Nicolo. Nicolo had a few students who achieved fame making musical instruments as well. One was his own son, Girolamo, and another, the famed Antonio Stradivari.

18. Abdicate : DEMIT
“To demit” is to relinquish an office, to resign, to abdicate.

26. Eye layer : UVEA
The uvea is the middle of the three layers that make up the eyeball.

28. Peeping Tom, e.g. : CREEP
In the legend of Lady Godiva, a noblewoman rode naked through the streets of Coventry in England, basically as a dare from her husband in return for relieving the taxes of his tenants. Lady Godiva issues instructions that all the town’s inhabitants should stay indoors while she made her journey. However, a tailor in the town named Tom disobeyed the instructions by boring holes in the shutters on his windows, and “peeped”. As a result, Peeping Tom was struck blind, and the term “peeping Tom” has been in our language ever since.

31. Help in making a prediction, maybe : ESP
Extra Sensory Perception.

32. Riddle-me-___ : REE
There's an old English nursery thyme that goes:

Riddle-me riddle-me riddle-me-ree,
Perhaps you can tell what this riddle may be:
As deep as a house, as round as a cup,
And all the king's horses can't draw it up.

And the answer is ... a well!

38. Unrestricted, as a mutual fund : OPEN END
By definition, an open-end mutual fund is one in which the investors can cash in their shares at the end of each trading day, should they so desire.

41. Tom Sawyer's crush : BECKY
In "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", young Tom is infatuated with Becky Thatcher.

43. "Woe ___" (grammar guide) : IS I
Patricia O'Connor has written five books about the English language, including "Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English". What a great subject for book! I need to buy it for my kids (and probably should take a peek myself) ...

44. TKO callers : REFS
In boxing, a knockout (KO) is when one of the fighters can't get up from the canvas within a specified time, usually 10 seconds. This can be due to fatigue, injury, or the participant may be truly "knocked out". A referee, fighter, or doctor may also decide to stop a fight without a physical knockout, especially if there is concern about a fighter's safety. In this case, the bout is said to end with a technical knockout (TKO).

45. Paolantonio of ESPN : SAL
Sal Paolantonio is a reporter for ESPN based in Phildelphia, mostly associated with coverage of the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants and the New York Jets.

48. MS. enclosures : SASES
Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelopes.

52. "Love Me Do" vis-à-vis "P.S. I Love You" : SIDE A
“Love Me Do” was actually written by Paul McCartney on a day he was playing hooky from school when he just 16 years of age.

“P.S. I Love You” was recorded by the Beatles way back in 1962. On the recording, Ringo Starr is playing the maracas, not the drums. A session musician played the drums, replacing Pete Best who had just been fired by Brian Epstein. Ringo hadn’t yet been “anointed” as Best’s replacement.

55. Actress Lena Olin, e.g., by birth : SWEDE
Lena Olin is a Swedish actress, discovered by Ingmar Bergman. Her most famous performance was in "Chocolat" released in 2000, and then she won an Emmy in 2003 for Best Supporting actress for her performances in the TV show "Alias".

57. Easter Island is part of it : CHILE
Rapa Nui is the Polynesian name for what we are more likely to call Easter Island. The European name was given to the island by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who came across it on Easter Sunday in the year 1722. Easter Island is inhabited, and is a location that is remarkably distant from neighboring civilization. The nearest inhabited island is Pitcairn Island, almost 1300 miles away.

58. "Born on the Fourth of July" hero Ron : KOVIC
"Born on the Fourth of July" is an autobiography of a paralyzed Vietnam War veteran who became an anti-war figure on returned to the US. The author is Ron Kovic, who is played by Tom Cruise in a 1989 screen adaptation directed by Oliver Stone (for which Stone won an Academy Award). The book title is a play on the lyrics of the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy".

59. Great-grandfather of Noah : ENOCH
Enoch was the great-grandfather of Noah, and the great-grandson of Adam.

61. See 88-Across : GAUSS
88. 10,000 61-Down : TESLA
Carl Freidrich Gauss was a German mathematician and scientist, by all accounts a child prodigy and one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. He did a lot of work in the field of magnetism in his latter years, and for this the metric system's unit of magnetic induction was given the name "gauss".

63. Certain Black Sea dweller : ODESSAN
The city of Odessa in Ukraine was founded relatively recently, in 1794 by Catherine the Great. The city was originally meant to be called Odessos after an ancient Greek city believed to have been located nearby. Catherine liked the way the locals pronounced the name as "Odessa", so went with the less Greek sounding name.

64. It's a gas : RADON
Radon is a radioactive gas, a byproduct produced when uranium decays naturally in the earth. Radon gas can collect and accumulate in buildings and rooms that are particularly well insulated with very little air exchange. The danger is very real, as radon is listed as the second most frequent cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoke.

70. Morse T : DAH
Samuel Morse was a very accomplished and reputable painter (he was engaged to paint a portrait of President John Adams, for example). In 1825 he was in Washington working on a commissioned painting when he received a one-line letter by horse messenger telling him that his wife was ill. He left immediately for his home in New Haven, Connecticut but by the time he arrived she had already died and had been buried. This single event spurred him to move from painting to the development of a rapid means of long distance communication, leading to the single-wire telegraph and Morse code.

71. "The Balcony" playwright : GENET
Jean Genet was a French playwright and novelist. Before he turned to writing, Genet was a homeless person with a criminal record.

81. Voltaire or Adam Smith : DEIST
Deism (from the Latin "deus" meaning god) is the belief that a supreme being created the universe, a belief based on observation and reason and without the need for faith. Further, a deist does not accept divine intervention, but rather believes that the supreme being having created the universe, leaves the world to it own devices.

101. Like Guinness : IRISH
Guinness is the most popular beer sold in Ireland. It has that famous creamy white head, a result of mixing the beer with nitrogen as it is poured. You can also buy Guinness that has no nitrogen, which is sold under the name Guinness Export. This carbonated version of the beer has a very different taste, and is my personal favorite.

102. "Pearly Shells" singer : DON HO
Don Ho apparently had a pretty liberal arrangement with his wife. When he was touring with his two backing singers Pattie Swallie and Elizabeth Gevara, all three of them shared a room together. He had two children with each of his roommates, giving a total of ten kids including the six he had with his wife. The arrangement was quite open, it seems, with all ten kids visiting each other regularly. To each his own ...

105. Ole Miss misses, e.g. : COEDS
Ole Miss is the nickname for the University of Mississippi. The name "Ole Miss" dates back to 1897, the first year a student yearbook was published. The graduating class held a competition to name the yearbook, and "Ole Miss" emerged as the winner. The name stuck to the yearbook, and also to the school itself.

111. Taiwan-based computer maker : ACER
I am typing away right now in an Acer laptop, for my money the most reliable machine at the best price. Acer is a Taiwanese company that I used to visit a lot when I was in the electronics business. I was very impressed with the company's dedication to quality, and haven't been let down since.

113. Home of 102-Down : OAHU
102. "Pearly Shells" singer : DON HO
O'ahu has been called "The Gathering Place", although the word "O'ahu" has no translation in Hawaiian. O'ahu is simply the name of the island, it seems. One story is that it is named after the son of the Polynesian navigator that found the islands.

115. ___ Jima : IWO
Iwo Jima today is an uninhabited volcanic island located south of Tokyo, Japan. There were about a thousand Japanese civilians living on the island prior to WWII. In 1944, there was a massive influx of military personnel in anticipation of the inevitable US invasion. As the Japanese military moved in, the civilians were forced out, and no one has lived there ever since.

118. Stephen of "Interview With the Vampire" : REA
Stephen Rea is an Irish actor, whose most famous role was that of the "retired" IRA man in the brilliant 1992 film "The Crying Game". He also starred in the chilling movie "Stuck", a 2007 film that is based on a true story about a woman who commits a hit and run on a homeless man. The woman leaves the scene of the crime with the victim still "stuck" in her windshield. The woman then leaves the man to die in her garage. Chilling, eh? But as I said, a true story ...

119. Govt. ID : SSN
The main purpose of a Social Security Number (SSN) is to track individuals for the purposes of taxation, although given its ubiquitous use, the SSN is looking more and more like an "universal identity number" to me. The social security number system was introduced in 1936. Prior to 1986, a SSN was required only for persons with substantial income, so many children under 14 had no number assigned. There was concern that a lot of people were claiming children as dependents on their tax forms who did not exist, so from 1986 onwards it was a requirement to get a SSN for any dependents over the ago of 5. Sure enough, in the following year's tax returns, seven million dependents "disappeared".

Apologies for the slow response to your question ... I'm on vacation right now, a bit of a hectic vacation ...

"Wet nap" is a term commonly used for a "wet wipe", one of those manufactured paper tissues that comes pre-moistened. You get them after a meal at some restaurants if you've been eating a finger-food type dish, or perhaps as a refresher on an airplane. I think the "nap" is indeed short of "napkin".

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About This Blog

This is the simplest of blogs.

I do the New York Times puzzle online every evening, the night before it is published in the paper. Then, I "Google & Wiki" the references that puzzle me, or that I find of interest. I post my findings, along with the solution, as soon as I am done, usually well before the newsprint version becomes available.

About Me

The name's William Ernest Butler, but please call me Bill. I grew up in Ireland, but now live out here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am retired, from technology businesses that took our family all over the world.

Crosswords and My Dad

I worked on my first crossword puzzle when I was about 6-years-old, sitting on my Dad's knee. He let me "help" him with his puzzle almost every day as I was growing up. Over the years, Dad passed on to me his addiction to crosswords. Now in my early 50s, I work on my Irish Times and New York Times puzzles every day. I'm no longer sitting on my Dad's knee, but I feel that he is there with me, looking over my shoulder.

This blog is dedicated to my Dad, who passed away at the beginning of this month.